


Unwelcome Realization

by Peppermint_Miraculous (Peppermint_Shamrock)



Series: Peppermint's Ladynoir July One-Shots [5]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, LadyNoir - Freeform, Ladynoir July
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 10:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15338403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peppermint_Shamrock/pseuds/Peppermint_Miraculous
Summary: “I had to kiss you to save you from Dislocœur,” she said gently.“That’s an interesting way of saying that I wastrying tokillyou!”Written for Ladynoir July Day 18 Prompt - Kiss





	Unwelcome Realization

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place the day after Audimatrix/Prime Queen.

“I can’t believe she _kissed_ me, and I don’t even remember it!” Adrien said. “She kissed me, Plagg. Ladybug kissed me. On the lips.”

Plagg was not impressed.

“What does it matter? You don’t remember it, as you already said. So what’s the big deal?”

“She _kissed_ me!” Adrien repeated, shaking his head at his kwami’s inability to understand romance. “And I may not remember…but I bet I can find pictures on the Internet! They must be out there, if Nadja had them.” He turned back to the computer and began his search. Just as he predicted, he found the pictures in short order. Huh. These definitely weren’t hidden; it was a wonder he’d never come across them before. Maybe he needed to look at other sites besides the Ladyblog all the time.

He slowly scrolled through the pictures, dreamily lingering on them for much longer than necessary. Picture, after picture…mostly the same picture, but still. Some of them were different angles.

Then, he came upon a gif.

He gazed at it as normal, until he really took it in. Then he stared at it for a different reason. This gif showed more than just the kiss…it showed the moments just before, as well. And normally, he might have been delighted by the way Ladybug pulled him to her, but…

“Plagg.” He could barely hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears.

“Yes, I know, she kissed you,” Plagg grumbled.

The gif looped over and over, and Adrien could no longer see the kiss, only his own hand. His hand, positioned just so over Ladybug, dark magic dancing around his claws…

“Plagg.”

This time, there was a note of urgency in his voice, and Plagg seemed to realize it.

“You okay? Adrien?”

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen.

.

.

.

The wind rushed by Marinette as she swung through the city, searching. No doubt, Alya was doing the same thing on foot below. She’d told Marinette that she’d been receiving messages about Chat Noir sightings all evening, and furthermore, that he’d been acting oddly. Alya, of course, just _had_ to check it out and get the scoop for her blog. Marinette had declined to tag along, and as soon as Alya had taken off, had booked it to the nearest secluded location and transformed.

“Oddly” could mean a lot of things, and Marinette, well, she had a tendency to catastrophize. Her mind was running through a million terrible possibilities, from “akumatized” to “slowly dying”. The sooner she found him, and made sure he was okay, the better, before her brain convinced her of the worst.

She found him sitting on a random rooftop, staring glassy-eyed out into the city. He didn’t appear injured or akumatized, which was a relief, but she was certain something was wrong. She landed behind him, and sat down beside him.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. Stupid question, she knew, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“No.”

Marinette’s eyes widened. He rarely gave such a straightforward response. Something must _really_ be wrong. She reached over to comfort him, but to her surprise, he flinched away from her, and she immediately pulled back. Her concern grew tenfold…he _never_ rejected physical contact with her.

“Please…don’t…” His voice was quiet, more subdued than she’d ever heard it. And if she wasn’t mistaken, it was _shaking_.

“Do you want to…can you talk about it?” she asked. There was a long silence, and when Chat Noir finally spoke, it was not what she expected to hear.

“I looked up the pictures of you kissing me,” he said, still quiet. “I was curious, because I didn’t remember any of it.”

Marinette frowned, wondering why that would be bothering him to this extent. Did he think she was toying with him? She thought she’d explained why she’d done it…

“I had to kiss you to save you from Dislocœur,” she said gently.

“That’s an interesting way of saying that I was _try_ ing to _**kill** _ you!” he said bitterly, his voice choking on the word “kill”.

_Oh._

So that’s what this was about.

“No, no, no. Kitten, that wasn’t really _you_ , you were being influenced by Dislocœur,” Marinette tried to reassure him. “You didn’t hurt me. You wouldn’t, I trust you…”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“It wasn’t you.”

“But it was!” he shouted, and drew a shaky breath. “I may not remember, but it wasn’t control, what he did, was it? It was turning love to hate. Which means I made those choices. It means that I’m…I’m _capable_ of everything that I did…or tried to do. That if I hated someone enough, I would…I would…” He took another shaky breath, steadying his voice. “Somewhere inside of me is the willingness to be a murderer.”

Marinette turned her head and stared out over the city, uncertain of what to say or do. She wished she could comfort him, hold him, even just take his hand…but she also understood why he wouldn’t be receptive to that right now. He was afraid to touch her, possibly afraid to touch anyone. Most of all, he was afraid of himself. Words would have to do, but were words enough?

“Isn’t that true for everyone?” she asked quietly, still looking out over the city. “Anyone – pushed too far, anyone – can become a killer. You think that if I’d gotten hit, that I wouldn’t have…tried to put my yo-yo around your neck, or something?” she said reluctantly. “Do you think that if someone gravely injured my family or friends, that I wouldn’t be out for blood? I don’t like to think of it any more than you do. I want to believe that I’m above something like that, but I don’t like lying to myself, either, and the truth is that everyone has their breaking point.”

“It’s a horrifying, frightening, and downright uncomfortable thing to realize about yourself,” she continued, her voice barely above a whisper. “Especially when one has a responsibility like ours. When you realize just how much power is in your hands, how… _easy_ it would be to become something terrible…how hard it would be for anyone to stop you. I _understand_ , Chat Noir. Your Cataclysm power might be scarier on the surface, but make no mistake: I’m just as dangerous as you are, and sometimes I’m afraid of it, too.”

“But,” she said, her voice growing stronger. “we are so much more than that. We are _heroes_ , we are Ladybug and Chat Noir, and that _means_ something. We are just as capable of great things as we are of terrible things, and we choose the former every day. That’s who we are. We are fallible, but because we can acknowledge and address our failings, we become better for it in a way that we never could if we denied or feared the negative aspects of ourselves.”

Marinette opened her eyes and turned to meet Chat Noir’s intense gaze. At least he seemed calmer now, though not reassured.

“You make it sound so easy,” he murmured, not taking his eyes away from hers. “But how can I possibly accept that I’m…that I could be anything less than a hero?”

“Who said anything about easy?” Marinette said. “But you’ve seen me in my moments of weakness, and can still see me as a hero. You still trust and rely on me.” It wasn’t a question, she knew he did. Chat Noir hesitated.

“That’s…different,” he said, reluctantly. “It’s different with you. Getting angry with Chloé Bourgeois is a far cry from…from nearly becoming a…a murderer.”

“All it would take is a touch of magical control, or even a sufficiently horrible non-magical tragedy to challenge my principles. Same as anyone else. Same as you. I’ll ask again: do you _really_ believe that I’m immune?”

“…No,” he said finally. “I guess not, but…at the same time, I can’t see you that way. And I don’t understand how, if you really believe that, how you can just…accept it. With me…I can’t…I can’t stop imagining what…could have happened. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Sometimes,” Marinette admitted.

She didn’t tell him that she had a mind that worked constantly to convince her of the worst outcome for any situation, and that she had long ago learned how to pick up and keep going – at least where superheroing was concerned – even when anxiety told her, irrationally or not, that everything would go down in flames.

She didn’t tell him that she didn’t have to imagine what it was like to watch your partner die.

“I’ve had a few nightmares,” she said instead. “I’m afraid that someday I won’t be strong enough to protect everyone. Turning to the dark side is just one of many scenarios. But you know me, I have a plan – no, dozens of plans – for everything. I trust myself to do _everything_ in my power to prevent a situation that would compromise me.”

“And you probably could, because you’re you,” Chat Noir said softly.

Marinette understood. She trusted herself, and he trusted her too. But even though she trusted him, he no longer trusted himself. Perhaps he never really did in the first place. It was, judging from how upset he was and how he acted normally, quite possibly the first time he had ever been forced to confront the less savory parts of himself (even if it _was_ magically induced behavior), and how could you trust yourself, really, if you didn’t know yourself, warts and all?

“You’re not a bad person,” she assured him. This time, she could not keep herself from reaching out to him, though lightly, so he could pull away if he wished. Though he tensed, he did not withdraw from her. “And you’re not alone. You have me as much as I have you. We’re a team and we won’t let each other lose ourselves. We’re heroes. _You_ are a hero, and you’re not defined by what happened with Dislocœur.”

“Thanks, Ladybug,” he said quietly, and finally, _finally_ , he leaned into her. Though he said nothing further, Marinette knew his unspoken question.

_Can we stay like this for now?_

She pulled him closer to her, and gave her silent answer in return.

_Of course, kitten._

They would be okay.


End file.
